


Bandit's Adoribull Tumblr Prompts

by DragonBandit



Series: Bandit's Tumblr Prompt Collection [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-05-21 16:06:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 13,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6057619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonBandit/pseuds/DragonBandit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of my Adoribull things from Tumblr.<br/>Please tell me if anything needs to be tagged.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You can take the Boy out of Tevinter...

 

Dorian wakes up at dawn with a raging headache and a sleeping qunari wrapped around him. He feels sick. Not an uncommon occurrence after Dorian has spent the night in someone else’s bed.

Change of the guard is in five minutes. Dorian has that long to get dressed, out of the door and to his own room. Easy enough. Except for the part where his clothes are scattered around the place.

He dons his robe finally after giving up on finding his smalls. It’s ripped, teared at the seams. Dorian mourns its loss silently. He doesn’t have many things from his home left now. Lost to Venatori and templars and dragons.

And now to the Iron Bull.

His smile is glass. Fragile and sharp at the edges. It cuts his face.

His clothes still fit, albeit not suitable enough for anything past this. His walk of shame.

Bull does not stir when Dorian slips out the door. No guards stop him, no friends call their greetings. Dorian thanks the maker for small mercies.

There is a half bottle of wine in his bedroom. By breakfast it is empty and Dorian is sound asleep.

By midmorning he is more human. More himself, which is to mean nothing like himself at all.

Last night was a mistake. Like all of Dorians trysts are. Too much wine, a pretty smile, a look and Dorian does what he always does. Fall for it. He’s given up telling himself he’s better that this. Given up lying.

It doesn’t matter anyways. It’s in the past now. Forgotten. Dorian is still safe.

It is days later and no one knows. Dorian unfurls by inches as the hours go past. Lulled into a sense of security. No one knows, No one can see. This is not Tevinter and their backs have not turned on him yet.

“So Dorian,” Bull starts and Dorian fixes a winning smile at the man, “About that pair of smalls you left in my room.”

Dorian’s smile freezes. Body ice, nerves on fire screaming. He stamps on it. He has been here before, years ago with a different man, a different set of friends. Remember loose shoulders, open arms, a winning smile. Make sure to look them in their eyes and laugh!

“You don’t believe in discretion do you?” Carry on the story, the tale. Don’t let yourself be scared. Trapped. Discovered.

It is easy, to pull on the correct mask. hear Bull laugh, pretend that Cassandra isn’t next to him scowling, that Sera isn’t making faces her ears twitching in amusement.

He is safe.

There will not be a next time.

Bull is running broad hands down his back. Murmuring things about watchwards. Dorian is not a child he doesn’t need to be coddled. He snarls about conquering and behind his mask he does not know if the tears are from laughter or crying.

He’s not entirely sure if the answer matters.

He is bluster and smiles. He is well groomed and handsome. He is sitting around a campfire and Bull is mocking him in front of everyone.

“3 times!” the Bull crows. The mask rolls Dorian’s eyes, smirks blandly.

Blackwall is grimacing, and Solas has a disparaging comment to distract from his wide eyes. There is nothing wrong here.

Dorian shares a tent with Cassandra. He has nightmares. Tevinter and Skyhold, rules and past alliances. Mixing together and Bull, Bull, Bull!

The scars on his wrist ache in the morning. Cassandra’s eyes do not meet his own.

Bull slings an arm around Dorian’s shoulders and smiles like there’s nothing wrong. That’s okay. Dorian has played this game before too.

What is it like to have a lover? What is it like to be loved and cherished for himself? What is it like for the hands on him and voice telling him low and sure that he is good aren’t just pretend?

Dorian thinks a lot of things behind the blindfold.

He thinks that he’s an idiot. He thinks that this is a mistake. He wonders if between the stolen moments and the mocking is there is anything here at all.

He wonders if the bull likes his prize of Tevinter Altus finally put in his place at a barbarians feet. He does not wonder what he did wrong. Dorian always knows that.

This is not new.

Dorian snarls for the Bull to stop teasing and to fuck him already. Bull calls him greedy. He is. He always has been. There is no reason to deny it.

Not when he stays. When dawn comes and he does not pick his clothes up from the floor with shaking fingers. When he curls instead to the side of the Bull and closes his eyes once again to oblivion. In this too, he is greedy.

And he is a fool. Amatus is a dirty word.


	2. Bull and Dorian having a lazy Sunday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian is terrible at waking up in the morning. The Bull takes the opportunity to be a sap.

Dorian has never been an early riser. Or even a particularly graceful one. Bull discovers this on the first Sunday that he manages to wake up before Dorian. It’s actually almost a month into their relationship that it happens. Dorian has classes early in the mornings and late evenings, and Bull has the Chargers.

All in all, it’s a miracle they manage to get into bed at the same time, let alone out of it.

Bull wakes quickly, old instincts still keeping him ticking, to find Dorian curled into his side. Not that unusual of an occurrence. More unusual is the fact that Bull has the time to actually gaze down at the tiny mage as he snoozes the hours away.

On any other day, Bull would have to be out and showering by now, ready to go out to another day guiding the Chargers through building whatever shit was on the list that week. Today though, it’s the weekend. The first weekend in fact that Dorian has also allowed himself the day off.

Dorian is dead asleep as far as Bull can tell. Snoring softly (not that Bull will ever tell him that) in a manner that is entirely unattractive but nevertheless makes something warm light itself in Bull’s chest.

He curls a broad hand against the nape of Dorian’s neck and smiles.

It’s kind of nice, to see his Kadan like this. Without all the usual pomp and circumstance that Dorian makes of his physical appearance. Right now, Dorian’s Kohl is smudged (He has a bad habit of forgetting to take it off), his mustache is crooked and his face is entirely missing the haughty expression that Dorian still brings out on special occasions.

He is beautiful. Not in the way that means that Bull wants to wreck him, to see if he can get all that polish and shine to crack off and see the more interesting shit beneath it. No, this is the beautiful that makes Bull lean down and gently kiss Dorian awake just to see his eyes go cross-eyed in confusion.

“Mrph?” Dorian says, and hey, that’s new. Bull didn’t know that Dorian’s mouth doesn’t work in the mornings.

“Morning Dorian,” Bull says.

There’s a moment where Dorian squints at him, then leans over to paw at his alarm clock so he can drag it over and see the numbers, “Amatus it’s 8 am.”

“Yeah,” Bull agrees, he’s been awake since about 6:30 but who’s counting.

“It is far too early to be up,” Dorian decrees. He yawns, jaw cracking, “You can’t seriously expect me to be awake right now.”

“You are awake.”

“Not for long,” He pulls the sheets up to his neck and falls dramatically onto his pillow.

Bull laughs at him. Dorian merely twitches his nose. Too early for things like sarcasm as well then.

“Come back to bed, Bull.” Dorian murmurs. A slim arm reaches out of the nest of covers to paw at Bull’s general direction. Bull catches it, and kisses the wrist.

“I am so going to give you shit for this when you wake up properly,” he says.

“You can certainly try.”

Dorian tugs at his wrist, pulling the Bull back into the bed. The warmth of the sheets soft against his skin, (silk–because Dorian). He curls up around his Kadan, kisses him gently on his temple and watches him sleep.

Yeah, Bull thinks, he could get used to this.


	3. Nasty Battle with Templars. Mana exhaustion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian and Bull along with the Inquisitor get into a nasty battle with the Red Templars, and Dorian completely exhausts his mana (which is terribly dangerous for a Mage). He doesn't say anything and tries to push through. No one notices until he collapses, sick and drained.

One of the first things you learn in the circle is how to gauge how much mana your body currently contains. Dorian remembers long sessions of meditation, while a teacher droned on and on about the dangers of letting that level of mana drop too low. Just as he remembers the students who didn’t learn the lesson, who let hubris get the better of them and found themselves suddenly empty in the exact wrong moment.

Five apprentices died in Dorian’s first year. Two from assassination, two from duels, and the fifth from using up all his mana and dropping to the stone floor of the courtyard as the construct of ice and lighting he had been conducting shattered into a million pieces.

When you run out of mana you do not stop being able to cast. You simply start casting it from a different source.  

The first rule of the circle had always been to never let the source become your own life span.

Dorian has never been very good with rules.

His staff spins, fire spitting out the end to land a hit on the templar raising a sword ready to slice the Inquisitor in half. Dorian steps sideways, casts barrier around them all and grits his teeth. Fire glyph, horror spell, step through the fade to avoid the knives headed towards him. Immolate. He ran out of lyrium potions an age ago.

His body twinges on the last spell, and Dorian grits his teeth as the memory of an instructor recites blandly that the first symptom of mana exhaustion is numbness. Dorian cannot feel his fingers. He hasn’t been able to since about the behemoth caught all of them off guard. Later, perhaps, he’ll be able to laugh about that. Three sets of good eyes and Bull and still none of them had noticed the small horde of red templars until they were on top of them.

At the moment though he barely has time to breathe. All of his focus is wrapped up in his spellwork, where his feet are, where Cassandra, the Inquisitor and Bull are compared to the templars and Dorian’s fire traps. The air is ozone and blood and burning bodies. The clang of metal against armour and the slick, wet sound that comes when a blade meets flesh.

And the screaming. Though Dorian isn’t entirely sure how much of that is outside his head as opposed to rattling around inside his skull.

There are too many of them. It’s simple mathematics. Four against ten, one of which is enough to make up another three. Even with the teamwork forged from long days of fighting together, there is only so much that tactics can alleviate the press of sheer numbers.

Barrier, Flame wall. Turn and stab the end of the staff through the rogue sneaking up behind him. Look across the battlefield to check that Bull is still standing. Smile.

“I could do this all day,” He crows.

In the circle there were spells that not taught, on account of the fact that the magic in them was untamed already. Unteachable in principle. The type of spell that happened because the user was desperate, insane, or both. In the books Dorian had found on the subject there had been exactly one consensus on them:   The spells were always extremely powerful and they were always executed on the last of a mage’s mana.

There are too many of them.

Fire glyph, wince as his fingers twinge (the third sign of mana exhaustion is muscle cramps), fade step to dodge a templar’s sword. Barrier. Horror.

They are all tiring. Cassandra’s shield doesn’t shove her opponents back as hard as it should. The Inquisitor doesn’t leap through their opponents as well as they should. The Bull’s axe falls down again and again and each time it takes a little more time for it to be raised. The templars, damn them, don’t seem to tire at all.

Dorian wonders vaguely if the red lyrium has an effect on stamina as well as turning its users into mindless monsters with a penchant for wanting to rip his face off. Then he ducks under a sword and finds himself back to back with the Bull.

The familiar stench of sweat fills Dorian’s nostrils. And blood. “You’re hurt,” he says. A ridiculous thing to say considering Bull’s battle specialty and the fact that this is a battle. Of course he’s hurt. Dorian glances to find the cut, relief flooding through his chest at the sight of something that for the Bull is barely a graze.

“So are you,” Bull grunts.

Dorian blinks, only just now realising the long cut running through his forearm. Ah. Shit. (The fifth and final symptom of mana exhaustion is the loss of sense.) “It’s just a flesh wound,”

His staff spins in an arc, flame wall, fire glyph. Stay within the range of Bull’s circle and cover his back as the axe swings. a group of templars falls to the wicked edge of it. Another to the fires that they dodge into to avoid Bull.

There are too many of them.

The behemoth lunges at Bull.

One of the exercises for imagining how much mana a mage contained was to think of it like a candle. Each spell taking up a little bit more of the wick until the entire thing was a blob of melted wax. Dorian has the feeling that right now his candle is burning at both ends.

Barrier.

Immolate.

Immolate Immolate Immolate Immolate. They will not kill his friends, they will not kill his love. Not while Dorian has blood in his body and air in his lungs.

There is a phenomenon known as flashfire. Where the very particles in the air ignite to form a blazing inferno. It lasts barely a second. A sudden blaze of desperation and mana that takes the form of heat and light. There are very few things that survive it. Grass does not. Animals caught in the blaze do not. Red templars for whom the spell is intended for certainly do not.

Four people protected under the barrier of the mage that is controlling the spell do.

A mage is not meant to survive the type of spell that produces Flashfire.

Dorian lurches sideways, his staff slipping out from under him. Under his feet there are only ashes. The only smell in the air is ozone. He doesn’t remember hitting the ground.  

* * *

Dorian wakes up to the feel of someone running a cool cloth over his head. His eyes open, taking in the canvas roof of a tent. His nerves are on fire.

“Not dead then,” he observes.

There’s a harsh, choked laugh. Nothing at all like how Bull usually sounds. Dorian’s brows furrow.

“Is everything alright?” he asks.

“It is now,” Bull says. His hand is trembling against Dorian’s shoulder. Another event that Dorian does not remembering happening before. “Fuck you scared me back there, big guy.”

“I couldn’t let them hurt you,” Dorian says. He reaches up, or tries to. His arms feel like lead. Bull catches his hand. His lips are gentle against Dorian’s wrist.

“You set everything on fire.”

“I really couldn’t let them hurt you.”

Maybe one day he’ll explain just exactly how much Dorian means that sentiment. Right now though he’s a little too busy celebrating the fact that he is actually alive, as opposed to a pile of ashes.

Bull laughs though, a deep rumbling that sounds like the most glorious thing Dorian has heard in his entire life. “Warn me next time.”

“I’ll try to.” Dorian lies. If he ends up running out of mana like that again there is more than a good chance that he won’t live long enough to say anything. He doesn’t let that show on his face. No need to worry Bull. Not now.

Not ever.

A little mana exhaustion is nothing compared to keeping The Iron Bull alive.  


	4. Adoribull with Dorian fiancé trying to lure him back to Tevinter.

“Is this a joke?” Dorian asks.

Livia crosses her arms over her chest and glares at him from across Redcliffe’s empty tavern. “I could ask the same of you,” she snaps, “I had to travel with elves to find you.”

Oh, so that’s the game they’re playing.

“How tragic,” Dorian spits back, “I’m sure that must have been a horrible experience. Allow me to offer my condolences on the inconvenience I must have caused.” He spreads his arms wide, dropping into a mocking bow. “Now fuck off!”

Behind him he can feel Bull shuffling awkwardly. Dorian feels his stomach drop to his knees. Of all the two people he never wanted to be in the same room together, this really is taking the cake.

“You really are being very childish,” Livia says. She’s as haughty as he’s meant to remember her. An image in purple silks not suited for the weather and impeccable makeup. Is this what the Inquisition sees when they look at him, Dorian wonders, just another stuck up Tevinter brat? Maker no wonder they hate him.

“Am I?”

“You’re running around south Thedas to avoid your duties as a man. You’re being the epitome of childish.”

“Is this an attempt to shame me into acting like an adult?”

Livia snorts, “Hardly. Even I know all that would do is make you find the nearest brothel to throw a tantrum in.” she pauses, suddenly raising her eyes from where they’ve been glaring daggers into Dorian’s eyes to look at Bull. Her lips thin into a sneer, “Or do you not need brothels here?”

The fire simmering in Dorian’s stomach burns white hot. “Don’t you dare.”

“Dare what?” She’s striding forwards and Dorian matches her without thinking of it. She’s wearing heels and she still only comes up to his nose, “make observations that a blind child would be able to see?” She’s still looking at Bull. “Does your father know you’re committing treason?”

“My father has nothing to do with this!”

“Oh Dorian,” Livia snorts, “you really should stop lying.”

There’s nothing he can do to refute that. He swallows around a childish retort that would just prove her right, and then smothers a curse as he turns his face to stone. He draws himself up, back straightening until he’s looking down his nose at her. There’s a barb twisting in his throat and he opens his mouth to spit it out.

There’s a hand resting on his shoulder. Heavy and broad against the silk of Dorian’s robes. The insult twists into a shuddering gasp.

“Bull please,” he says, not entirely sure what he’s even asking for. Whatever it is he’s tipped his hand too much because Livia’s sneer turns triumphant. Her eyes tell a different story. She’s always been good at politics, but she’s also his friend. She knows what she’s doing. Just as Dorian knows that she cannot stop.

“You want to explain who this is, big guy?” Bull rumbles.

Dorian resists the urge to say that no, he does not. But he’s not actually that much of a child. No matter what most of Tevinter seems to think. The tilt of his shoulders into the Bull’s bulk he blames on the chill of the south. It has nothing at all to do with comfort. Why would Dorian need to take comfort from anyone, let alone a Qunari savage?

“Bull, Livia Herathinos. Livia, The Iron Bull.” Dorian says, stilted. A lifetime of learning formal speech going down the drain with every syllable.

“I’m his fiancee” Livia says with a saccharine smile. Utterly removing any hope that Dorian would have had to avoid that particular fact from ever being aired.

Dorian fully expects Bull’s hand to fall away from him. He’s not expecting the arm to wrap around his shoulders in an almost one armed hug. The shock shows on his face, judging by the expression on Livia’s.

“Nice to meet you,” Bull says.

“Quite,” Livia dismisses. She turns her gaze to Dorian again. There’s an ugly light barely hidden in her eyes. She thinks she’s won, Dorian realises. He’s shown his hand too early and now she knows exactly what to say to get him to do whatever she wants.

“I suppose this means I get the estate then,” She says.

There’s a moment where Dorian doesn’t understand what she means. Then her gaze flicks rather pointedly at Bull. Ah.

Of all the things that Dorian had been worried about in regards to this relationship this is actually the one that had worried him the least. To the point that he hadn’t thought about it until just now. An oversight, obviously.

“No.” he says anyway.

“Then you’re coming back to Tevinter.” A fact. Not a question, not an order. Just, a fact. Like it’s already pre-ordained. Dorian stiffens. Bull’s hand tightens on his shoulder, and Dorian isn’t sure what to make of that either.

“I didn’t say that.”

Livia tuts, “Well you can’t expect this… madness to be accepted once word gets back to Tevinter.”

“I don’t see why not,” Dorian says. Everything is very distant now. Like it’s not really him that’s having this conversation anymore. “What happens in the south has been known to stay in the south as far as our country is concerned.”

Livia just laughs at him. “You’re fucking a qunari, dear.”

“And you’re being blackmailed by my father to make me come back home.” Dorian says. Cards falling onto the table in a losing hand.

Livia spreads her arms. The mask drops just for a moment, and he sees the human underneath all of that impeccable makeup. She’s as much a puppet as he is.  “Quite,” She says.

“What happens if they find out about me?” Bull says.

Dorian closes his eyes, swallows tightly, “The traditional sentence is death by beheading and all of my assets to go to my next of kin.”

The hand on Dorian’s shoulder tightens to the point where it’s painful. Not the good type of pain and Dorian makes a small sound of protest. Instantly the pressure vanishes, though the arm does not. Instead Dorian is turned until he’s standing sideways to Livia and in front of The Iron Bull. He can’t bear to look up, so he doesn’t. Instead he examine the patterning in Bull’s shoulder harness as if they’re as fascinating as a new paper on magical theory.

“I really am sorry about this Dorian,” Livia says. Her voice comes to him like she’s talking through fog.

“You didn’t tell me.” Bull says.

Dorian shrugs, “It wasn’t important.” Not to begin with. And then by the time it was it wasn’t as if Dorian could have done anything to stop it. Save perhaps to cut out his heart and that had felt rather counterintuitive when Dorian had stared at the souvenirs decorating his arm from the last time he’d been in Tevinter.

Bull makes a wordless sound, that should probably make Dorian afraid but he’s gotten better at reading Bull’s noises after months of dancing around a relationship. “You should have told me.”

“There’s a lot of things I should tell you,” Dorian points out, “Would you really like the list.”

“Yes.”

Dorian laughs. “Don’t say things you don’t mean.” He wants to reach up, to cradle Bull’s jaw in his hands and kiss off the frown that’s obviously there. He wants to let Bull take the everpresent brace off his arm and explain the scars under it. He wants–Dorian wants a lot of things. None of them, however, are appropriate for the empty inn of Redcliffe when Livia is pretending to be a heartless bitch at him.

“I can’t marry you,” he says, turning back to her. “And you can’t tell father otherwise he’ll most likely kill you so he doesn’t have to give you my birthrights.”

“Your father will do more than that to you–”

“I am no son of his.” Dorian interrupts. The mask falls off, and Livia looks at him with such profound understanding that it hurts.

“The past is a foreign country, and sometimes it is one that we war with.” Livia says in tevene, the bastardisation of the proverb so old that Dorian isn’t sure if it was him or her or one of their endless friends that came up with it. “You’re throwing away your life for a Qunari,” She means ‘you’re throwing away your life for a love that might not be returned.

“I know.” He says.

Livia smiles, “I suppose I’ll just have to tell your father that your role to the saving of the world is as invaluable as the Inquisition claims. He’ll expect you back after this business is over with but I’m sure you already knew that.”

She walks past him–to the only exit of the building Dorian realises. As she passes she hisses at him, “Be careful, Amicus.” before her mask covers her face again as surely as if it had never fallen.

“It’s rather too late for that,” Dorian says to the empty air. And to Bull but hopefully Bull won’t be able to work out all the pieces of that conversation. “Excuse me I need to get some air,” he says louder in a tone meant to be heard.

Bull lets him go. Dorian isn’t sure whether he’s glad of that or not.

Later. Later he’ll explain whatever Bull wants him to. Later. Sooner than he wanted. Though to be fair to Dorian he had always wanted Later to mean Never. He’d always known that it wouldn’t hold.

Just as he’d known that going to the Bull a second time was signing his death sentence. Just as he’d known that falling in love was the best mistake that Dorian could ever make. One that he refuses to apologize for, no matter how much strife it will give him.

The pieces are set now. There’s no way for Dorian to go back, not even if he wanted to.

He doesn’t want to.


	5. Bull confessing (and/or reassuring of) his love?

The first time Bull ties Dorian up the mage can’t help but let a small laugh escape him. Bull pauses in his ministrations to quirk an eyebrow at Dorian.

“You want to share something?”

“You’re using red rope,” Dorian explains. He smiles up at the Iron Bull, “I take it they don’t have that legend in Par Vollen?”

“Guess not, since I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“It’s very old, a child’s tale really,” Dorian flexes his wrists, testing the red silk for any give. There isn’t any of course. Bull is very good at knots. “Fated lovers are tied together with a red string between their left hands.”

“I’ve tied more than your left hand.” Bull says.

“Well we’re not exactly fated lovers are we,” Dorian says. Bull pulls him into a kiss. After that there isn’t much need to keep talking.

Dorian forgets about the conversation honestly. Old legends were never encouraged in the Pavus household to begin with. And besides, he has more important things to remember.

It’s an awful day. It starts out awful and it only manages to get worse from there. There’s nothing about it that particularly makes it an awful day. Not particularly. Perhaps it is Dorian that is the awful one, and he should stop blaming the day for his moods.

But is has also been a full year since he walked into his father’s study to find blood on the ground, and then later blood on his arm and honestly Dorian should be over this. But he isn’t. He isn’t and the memory grates all day and makes him snappy to his friends and downright horrible to his acquaintances.

Nervous energy cascades through him. With no outlet his eyes won’t focus on the pages of his books and every few minutes he finds himself staring off into the distance like he’s waiting for someone to attack him. It’s ridiculous. He is a grown man.

He is a grown man with a life and friends that don’t care about his irregularities and in fact some of them encourage those irregularities by joining in with them! A line of thought that ends, quickly and suddenly on Bull.

Dorian swallows around a lump of panic now lodged in his throat. Oh. Oh thinking about Bull when he feels like this was a terrible decision. Not when every time he wakes up after their nights it takes all of his energy to stop the shaking that demands he get out of the room now before someone sees. Before someone uses his weakness to hurt the person that Dorian– likes. Likes. As a friend.

A friend that he occasionally shares a bed with. Whatever. It’s the Iron Bull. Dorian warming his bed every few nights means nothing.

He knows that’s a lie. Another note of panic that Dorian pretends desperately doesn’t exist. Dorian has always been terrible at not attaching strings to things that shouldn’t have strings. It’s the reason he went back a second time. And a third, and a fourth, until sometimes Dorian isn’t sure when the last time he went to his own room was.

In Tevinter he would be dead already.

There are two choices now. Either he gets upset or he gets angry. Dorian picks anger. Anger at Bull for–for being Bull and obnoxious and loud and spreading around things that should stay private. For lulling Dorian into this sense of false security that will only end in tears. With Dorian alone, again, and the Bull with a new person on his arm. Where all Dorian can do is watch and pretend that everything is fine.

He doesn’t realise that he’s started moving until he finds himself in the tavern staring Bull down.

“Hey big guy,” Bull says. Like everything is fantastic. He’s even leering at Dorian. Where the entirety of Skyhold can see him.Typical.

It is not endearing, it is not endearing at all. It does not make a small, sad part of Dorian quirk up it’s lips and sigh happily at this sure sign that he is wanted.

“Bull,” Dorian snaps. A single sharp little word that means so many different things.

Bull tilts his head. “Ah.” he says. And Dorian stretches his lips into a parody of a smile.

He’s strung up, standing on his tiptoes as Bull towers over him. Arms over his head and held there by a massive palm.  Anger simmering and turning into something else. Something better. Something that Dorian can deal with.

The Iron Bull fucks Dorian till he’s senseless with it. The torrent of feelings warring in Dorian’s head quieting, stilling. Suddenly unimportant when he’s under the Bull. It’s rough and hard and violent and Dorian is going to be bruised all over afterwards.

The second time he comes Bull stills, quiets. Takes Dorian to the bed and curls around him, Dorian draped across his chest and knees. It’s so soft that it hurts Dorian’s heart ache with nameless longing.

“Stop it.” He says.

“Stop what?”

Dorians still so close to his empty headspace that the words just spill out, “Acting like you love me.”

Bull’s broad hand pauses where it had been rubbing soothing circles into Dorian’s back. He murmurs something in Qunlat that Dorian can’t even begin to start picking out.

“Is that what I’m doing here?”

“Well. Yes,” Dorian says. “You’re– taking care of me. Why are you doing that?” He’s asked this question before. The first time they’d done this. When he’d thoroughly been expecting to get kicked out of the room after being subjected to all the glories of Qunari strength.

Then the answer had been aftercare. Apparently a part of sex if it was as rough as what Dorian and Bull did.

He means something different this time. Judging by the way the Bull doesn’t reiterate a point Dorian already knows, he’s figured that out. Last time the word love hadn’t even been so much as breathed.

Bull sits up slightly. He turns and deposits Dorian onto the pillows of the bed. This is new. Different. It feels a little too much like being abandoned even if Bull is right there and Dorian can’t help but whimper slightly at the loss of contact. Immediately Bull’s hands are cradling the side of his face.

“Not going anywhere,” he murmurs. He kisses Dorian briefly before he turns away, moving to the foot of the bed where Dorian vaguely recalls there being a chest. When Bull comes back to the bed he’s holding a set of red ropes.

Dorian stares at them. He knows they’re silk. Knows how soft they are against his skin. Knows exactly what sort of ropes Bull will tie into them and around Dorian’s body if that’s the kind of play he’s interested in right now.

It’s the thought of more sex that makes Dorian hold up his arms towards Bull. Only for the man to gently take his left wrist and kiss it gently before wrapping one end of the rope around it. It makes no sense. Especially when Bull doesn’t lean over Dorian to fasten the other end of the rope to the bedpost.

Instead Dorian can only watch in sheer bemusement as Bull loops the end over his own fist and pulls it into a loose knot.

“What are you doing?” Dorian asks when no explanation makes itself known.

Bull’s eye curls up with his smile, “There’s an old kids tale in Tevinter that fated lovers are connected by a red thread from their left hand.”

Dorian blinks, “What.”

“There’s a kid’s tale–”

“Yes, yes I got that.” Dorian interrupts. He raises himself up to gain some height. So he’s not lying down like some distressed damsel. “Why are you emulating it?”

Bull looks at him silently. Dorian resists the urge to squirm under that steady gaze, he can’t bear to hold the stare for longer than a few seconds. Instead dropping his head to look at the loops of red over his wrist. It’s twin crossed around Bull’s.

He doesn’t understand. They aren’t–they’re not are they?

“I think I’m going to have to ask a rather stupid question right now,” Dorian says.

“Go for it, Kadan.”

“Is this your way of telling me that you wish us to be lovers?” If he says it clinically it’s only because if he doesn’t he’ll never get it out of his throat at all. But the delivery must leave something to be desired because Bull stills, hand going away from Dorian’s like a retreat.

“No!” Dorian says, reaching and grabbing for it before it and the man can go behind a guard that Dorian won’t be able to follow. “Forgive me that was–”

“Right,” Bull interrupts. He shrugs, “If you don’t wanna then you don’t have to apologise.”

“But I do want to.” Dorian says. So proud that he gets the words out around the knot in his throat that used to fester in his heart. “I–Bull. Amatus.” He decides. “Amatus. I– please.”

Please understand me. Please kiss me, please don’t be joking. Please let this not be some dream conjured by a desire demon because even I might not be that strong.

Bull does all of the unstated desires. And Dorian clutches him. Waiting for this to morph into the nightmare it must be. But the sheets below him are foul, and he is sticky with sweat, and the silk under his fingers goes just a little too tight when Dorian tugs on it.

It isn’t a dream.

The Iron Bull is in love with him. Dorian has the red string to prove it. He is never taking this loop of red off.


	6. The things you didn't say at all

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is, maybe not really in line with the prompt. But it insisted it was. If you know of spill words, there’s a lot of that going on.

**A list, of sorts, of the things that Dorian said to hide the things he thought.**

 

The hole in your ceiling is not charming

I don’t appreciate being picked up. 

Just because some of us take pride in our appearance doesn’t mean that the rest of us can walk around in pants that belong in a fire

One day I’m going to stop laughing at your terrible jokes. 

Not everything in Tevinter is awful. 

Please stop trying to feed me, you’re going to make me fat. 

My skirts are not cute. 

I am not even wearing skirts, Bull. 

I hate it when you make me beg. 

I can’t stay the night. 

This research is dreadfully important, I really can’t leave it alone. 

No not even if there happens to be a---

I told you I don’t appreciate being picked up!

You snore dreadfully

I really can’t stay the night. 

The holes in my clothes where your claws have rended them are not charming

I will never have sex with you in a tent

No seriously, Varric is right outside and he probably has a notebook and quill

I have never stared at your muscles for long periods of time

I have certainly never been caught staring.

When I go back to Tevinter how big do you think the scandal will be? 

Me, and you. The Altus and the Qunari spy. Do you think they’ll make plays about us?  

You’re a savage. 

Your open door policy is ridiculous, I hope you are aware. 

Loudly proclaiming what we did in bed yesterday is not charming

I am not cute when I blush. 

I am not cute when I beg. 

Calling me pretty gets you nowhere. 

You really don’t have to comfort me when I have nightmares. 

No, no don’t make puns when I’m in bed with you, are you trying to make me leave? 

Just because you get a hard on from dragons doesn’t mean that I will indulge your fantasies

While your endeavours to make me scream are impressive, they won’t work. 

Do not smirk at Varric when he complains about us giving him a bad night!

I don’t fantasise about your horns. 

There’s no reason for you to rub my back when the foods made me sick

Or to dim the lights when I have a hangover from your awful ale. 

It’s alright that the Chargers don’t like me. 

I can’t wait to find out what sort of pariah they’ve made me out to be at home. 

Please stop going on about the curtains it wasn’t even funny the first time. 

Making me smile means nothing you ridiculous man. 

Kissing the scars on my wrist is hardly necessary. 

Can’t we just forget about all this talk and have you fuck me already? 

I don’t like it when you murmur endearments into my skin. 

I keep telling you, I can’t stay the night. 

  
  


(I love you)

(I’m scared)


	7. Felix's wedding angst 1/2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Today was the day of my best friends wedding and seeing all these happy couples is killing me and all I can think about is you and how we could have never had this. And then my (Insert relations here) asked about you and I had to lock myself in the bathroom and sit in the tub for half an hour and look through a folder on my phone of pictures I took of you to feel okay again. And I kind of still have your phone number memorized even though I haven’t called you since we split and somehow I remembered it even though I’ve been drowning in champagne and hey, I know you’re probably pissed and I’ll delete your number right after this but please will you just let me pretend I didn’t fuck up everything for just a little bit?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Modern AU. Contains Dorian referring to himself as an alcoholic and spending most of the fic drinking in excessive amounts.  
> Prompt made via me taking one of those lists on tumblr and smashing three of them together. I have since lost the original list. I'm not very good at titling this one. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Weddings in Tevinter are a long, drawn out affair that are far too expensive for their own good and involve more relatives than anyone wants to deal with for more than an hour, let alone several. Dorian is surrounded by people he hasn’t talked to in years. Great aunts and uncles, and third cousins twice removed. The entire family tree, stuffed into a room that has a chandelier that seems to be made out of diamonds hanging from the ceiling. 

The only blessing that Dorian has for the entire thing is that it is, at least, not his wedding. It’s Felix’s, which of course means that Dorian is the best man and thus unable to just slip out at the earliest opportunity. 

He’s dealing with this fact by drowning himself in alcohol. The best champagne Alexius could buy. Dorian can barely taste the flavour as he downs glasses with a rather reckless abandon. 

It’s not that he’s not happy for Felix--Maker he’s ecstatic. He’s been watching Felix court Agatha for months, years thinking about it, how time flies. Dorian’s been there since the first tentative dates, it’s always important to have a chaperone. He’s seen Felix fall so deeply in love that it shows in every single movement of his best friend. No, Dorian is so glad that Felix has been given this wonderful gift. 

But another part of him can’t help noticing one of the major staples of weddings: everyone has a partner swinging on their arm. Except of course, for the ones that are too young for such things. In his thirties, Dorian longer qualifies as that. Yet here he is, sans partner at his best friends wedding, absolutely miserable. 

It’s his own fault but it doesn’t make the wound sting any less. 

At least the reception is over now, and Dorian has given his speech about how wonderful Felix will be as a husband and hasn’t embarrassed or upset anyone with anecdotes or jokes. No one needs to talk to him. Everyone can just give him the wide berth they’ve been employing since Dorian first came out and scandalised the lot of them. 

He has the distinct feeling that most of the family are glad he didn’t bring a partner to the wedding for just this reason. 

The good thing about the pariah hood: Dorian is free to get completely and utterly shattered. 

Oh, Felix had tried to keep Dorian company at the start but Dorian would have none of it. “You have a new wife to spoil,” he’d pointed out and pushed Felix away. He’s gotten better at lying to Felix these days anyways; it takes him more than thirty seconds to tell there’s something wrong. So off Felix had gone and Dorian had slinked into a dark corner where hopefully he wouldn’t be noticed. Felix will be busy anyways, what with all these relatives to greet. 

Despite himself, Dorian casts his eyes around the room to find Felix--just in time to see him share a chaste kiss with Agatha. Dorian’s heart aches. And for a moment he wishes that it was his wedding. That he were the one marrying for (against all expectations) love. That he was the one set to head off into the sunset of domestic bliss after the night was over. 

It’s a stupid daydream. For one thing, this is still Tevinter. The only nation in Thedas that still hasn’t legalised gay marriage. Even if Dorian had a partner they would have never been able to have such an affair like this. Especially not one that clearly has the support of the entire family behind the marriage. 

And he doesn’t have anyone. For the same reason he’s here on his own. For the same reason he’s on what is possibly his-- maker he doesn’t remember-- glass of champagne.

Dorian drowns the daydream. He steadfastly ignores the fact that in the daydream the man kissing him had been tall, and broad and with large grey hands that had cupped Dorian’s chin so gently despite the obvious strength. 

No instead he’s going to focus on something else. Anything else. Like--Like how the tiles on the floor have been polished to a shine. Or that the dancing has come into full swing. Or how terrible the music is--all stuffy tunes that once Dorian would have pretended to love just to see the look on--

Dorian grabs the bottle of champagne and wonders if it would be worth it to just pour the damn thing down his throat. 

Before he can seriously contemplate it the bottle is plucked out of his grasp by a delicate hand wearing exactly the right amount of rings for this sort of function. Dorian looks up into eyes that are exactly the same as his own. Oh joy of joys, it’s his mother. Exactly the person he wanted to talk to right now. 

She’s looking at him with barely disguised disgust. Patently unfair in Dorian’s opinion. He inherited the alcoholism from her after all. But alas, he is just as spineless now as he was months ago and he doesn’t try and get the bottle back. 

“Mother,” he acknowledges. 

Aquinea looks down her nose at him. “Dorian. I confess that seeing you here was a surprise.” 

“I couldn’t miss my best friends wedding,” Dorian says. Internally the low level screaming that was the background noise for most of his life starts up again. He’s been in Tevinter for months. In all that time he’s made sure to never once give his parents an inkling that he’d left Fereldan. 

“Quite.”

For a while they just look at each other. Greetings and what pleasant formalities they can muster up already dealt with. Yet they can’t just carry on their merry way and leave each other the hell alone. No, they’re family and for that they have to dig barbs into each other’s open bleeding wounds. 

Admittedly, it’s mostly the sheer anxiety that makes Dorian open his mouth and ask Aquinea about father’s studies on blood magic. He suppresses a flinch as soon as it leaves his mouth. He’s so bad at this now. Fereldan has been terrible for the instincts that had once clovered Dorian like a cloak at these kinds of social affairs. 

Fereldan had been bad for a lot of things. 

“I see you didn’t bring your boyfriend,” Aquinea says, completely disregarding Dorian’s misstep as is her right as his mother. Dorian  _ does _ flinch at that. She has no right going here. Especially when she has to sneer the word boyfriend and she only knows because social media is the greatest betrayer in Dorian’s life save for himself and Father. 

“He--” No. Terrible. He’s stuttered now. “He couldn’t make it.” 

Aquinea sniffs, “Unfortunate, I was looking forward to meeting the man who had persuaded my son away from his true passions.” 

What Aquinea knows of Dorian's true passions is few and far between and has been since Dorian was seven. Of course he can’t just say that so instead he smiles thinly. 

“I was a researcher at Skyhold, mother,” he says. A desperate bid to turn the conversation around. 

“Skyhold, a moldering pile of bricks isn’t it?” Aquinea says, not bothering to hide her disdain.

“I like the work there.”

“Couldn’t you work a little closer to home? Honestly Dorian, Fereldan? It’s so cold and covered in barbarians. Not to mention their opinions on the sorts of… individuals who shouldn’t be allowed near civilised folk.”

Dorian’s back stiffens. “Perhaps,” he says, the only polite phrase he can muster. He turns on his heel, unspeakably rude but Dorian is done with this entire conversation and has been from the start. 

He’s a moment away from heading to the bar when the light hits a womans necklace just right and Dorian realises very suddenly that he _can’t do this._ He misses his own necklace. The one that he had left in the house that he could not longer pretend to even belong to a little bit of him. The heavy weight of it he had worn for-- far too long. 

He turns again and makes his way upstairs. To the hotel room he’s spending the night in. Because of course this wedding is an all night kind of affair.

The room is as lavish as the hotel. All white and gold in an attempt to make the already large room larger. Dorian doesn’t care. He collapses on the bed face first with his shoes still on. He’s not going to cry. He’s not going to cry. He’s not going to--

Oh to the void with it all. 

Dorian rolls over and presses his forearm against his eyes and stifles a sob behind his lips. He’d gotten bored of crying loudly when he was three, and realised that it didn’t matter how hard he sobbed his parents would never be the ones to tuck him into bed. He’d never told Bull that. Didn’t matter, Dorian suspects that he’d figured it out for himself. It had been rather telling, the first time Dorian had broken down in that tiny flat in large arms and hadn’t known what to do with hug except cling and hope it would never end. Like a child. 

It’s wrong to think things like this. It’s wrong to miss the things he’s lost when it’s his fault. He was the one that had safeworded out after all. 

Dorian has never been very good at doing things like being right. Except in the world of academia. A world that Dorian wishes desperately sometimes that he could just immerse himself in and never come out. 

Become just another toothless, drunk history professor that students flirted with for fun or because they were bored. Where nothing came out of anything except endless research papers and the slow, inexorable death of Dorian’s liver. 

Of course Dorian isn’t allowed to have nice things. There’s still a small (large) part of him that is still a child making his toy soldiers kiss. Wishing for love and a wedding ring and a white picket fence and a dog (A wonderful Fereldan term. It doesn’t have an equivalent in Tevene as far as Dorian has been able to work out). Hell he’d just about had an adopted group of teenagers with Bull. Not that the Chargers would have ever let themselves be called that. 

Then of course he’d ruined it. Like he ruins everything. 

Maker Dorian hates weddings. No. No that’s not fair. Especially not to Felix whose wedding it is. It’s a lovely wedding. A wonderful symbol of everything that Felix deserves and Agatha is a wonderful woman. He wishes them the absolute best in their future. That’s the reason he agreed to be best man, even though he knew the wedding itself would be absolutely hellish. To offer Felix his blessings. 

Well he’s done that. And he’s talked to his mother and he’s drunk far too much and he feels like shit. 

It’s a perfectly natural response to dig his phone out of his pocket and swipe his way to a pictures folder that he can’t bring himself to delete just yet. 

The first picture is the most recent, taken about a week before Dorian ruined everything. He’s smiling in it, Bull’s arm draped around his shoulder and looking at Dorian like he’s hung the stars and moon in the night sky. Dorian is looking at him back with the exact same expression. The picture had been taken by Krem, to prove some sort of point. Whatever the point had been Dorian doesn’t remember anymore. 

The next few pictures are Bull with the Chargers. The chaotic, amazing and utterly unbelievable mess of people that Dorian just had to document. At the very least so he would have proof to Felix that these people were in fact real and Dorian hadn’t conjured them out of his imagination. Though what type of mind makes up both Skinner and Rocky, Dorian does not want to know. In most of the pictures at least one of them is giving Dorian a rude gesture. It was tradition by that point.

Ungrateful lot. But they’d grown on Dorian by the end of it. He’d even managed to be somewhat friends with them. 

He suspects that now they wouldn’t even give him the time of day. That thought sours the pictures somewhat. He skips to the ones with just Bull in them. Not that that’s really any better, if Dorian were being honest with himself. If the chargers are a dull ache in his side, Bull is a festering wound. Dorian’s always had strange reactions to being hurt. 

In every picture Bull is smiling at him. Whether he’s in the frame, out of it, or behind the lens. Always smiling. At Dorian. That’s what had made Dorian leave. He couldn’t take it. That much of something that neither of them had words for. The disgraced altus and the Tal-vashoth. 

Right now it just makes him wish for a drink. There’s a mini bar in the room. There always is in fancy hotels such as these. Soon enough Dorian has a bottle of overly expensive alcohol in his hand. Wine, Tevene, he gulps it down like water. 

Bull had always hated how Dorian could do that. 

There’d been arguments about the bottles in the fridge. And behind the cabinets and under the bed and everywhere else Dorian could hide them. Now he pretends that that’s just another reason he left. (Dorian pretends desperately that the attention to his self destruction hadn’t made him feel wanted)

The last picture Dorian has of Bull is blurred--taken by Sera who has an uncanny talent at making things perfect with their imperfections. It’s the first picture of their relationship. When Bull was flirting across Varric's beaten kitchen table and Dorian was pretending to be disgusted by it. 

When all they had was furtive glances and invading each other's personal space and enough UST to make a lesser man scream. When Dorian was still denying that he was attracted to men, let alone a burly Qunari with biceps bigger than Dorian’s head. 

Sera had taken the picture to show Dorian that he looked like an idiot whenever he looked at Bull. At the time he had denied it, but now with the evidence in front of him again he can’t fault Sera’s logic. 

He’s smiling. Lips quirked upwards in the small, uncertain thing that was his real smile in Fereldan. And his eyes--maker how did he not realise that he looked at Bull like he was the entire world even then? No wonder Varric had started writing the book of their romance as soon as Dorian had laid eyes on Bull. 

The picture hurts. In that terrible, bittersweet sort of way that makes Dorian place a shaking finger on the Bull’s face like the contact will fix everything. Childish, he knows. He can’t help it. 

Just like he can’t help the hand that reaches blindly for the bottle and pours the last of it down his throat. 

And just like he can’t help his fingers tapping out a number he isn’t supposed to remember anymore, and raise the phone to his ear as it rings. One, two, three,

“Hello?”

“Hello Bull,” Dorian says. He laughs, a terrible, broken sound catching in the back of his throat. 

There’s a pause on the other end of the line, “Dorian,” Bull says just when Dorian’s starting to wonding if he’s hung up, “Why are you calling me?”

Because I’m an idiot. Dorian doesn’t say. Because I miss you so terribly that I dream of you every night and wake up confused when your touch isn’t there to ground me to reality. Because I’m bored and drunk and miserable and I don’t know what else I’m meant to do. Because your voice hurts and heals in equal measures and I’ve always been one for pain. 

“I’m at Felix’s wedding,” Dorian says. 

Another moment of terrible silence. Like Bull’s debating whether he should hang up after all before, “How’s that going for you?”

“Terribly.”

Bull snorts, “Filled with assholes?”

“That would be one way of putting it.” Dorian curls up, phone cradled in his hands like a tiny, precious thing. 

They falter into silence again. “I’m sorry,” Dorian says, “I shouldn’t have called I’m sorry I’ll--”

“Don’t hang up.”

Dorian takes his thumb off the hold button. His breath hitches in a way that he is desperately not considering as a sob. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologising,” Bull says, “Why are you calling? Last time we saw each other you said you didn’t want to be around me anymore. Didn’t even let me give you back all the clothes you’d hidden around my house.”

“Yes, well. I’m feeling particularly self-destructive tonight.” 

“Because your best friends getting married tonight?”

Dorian’s face twists, unsure of what expression it should be wearing anymore. “Let’s go with that.”

“How do I help?” 

Oh. Oh Dorian does not deserve this man. He has never deserved this man. Wasn’t that the reason he had originally left? To stop his poison from spreading into the Iron Bull’s veins? Dorian can’t quite remember anymore. The space where his necklace should be aches terribly. It’s so easy to fall back on the old request that he’d always used when his brain was moving too fast for it’s own good. 

“Take me out of my head?” 

There’s a little huffing breath from the other side of the phone. “What’s your safeword?” Bull asks, like this is still normal for them. Like nothing’s changed in the slightest. 

Dorian should hang up. Pretend that he doesn’t know this number and buy a new phone that doesn’t have all this incriminating data of a life he can’t live anymore. He should drink less too, if he’s going to list all of his bad decisions. 

“Katoh,” Dorian says and he only hates himself a little. 

They don’t have sex. 

Dorian wants that on the record, to whatever future person he tells this story to (Felix, invariably. A man who has put up with Dorian for far too long in the grand scheme of things). 

Instead Dorian’s clothes come off so he can put on pyjamas. They’re not the nice ones, the ones he’d had to give up on account of the fact that they had been made up of an old T-shirt of Bull’s. But they’re better than the too stiff, highly tailored suit that Dorian has already ruined via collapsing in. 

And Bull keeps up a litany of small talk, things that Dorian has missed while away from Skyhold, movies that he’s seen with the Chargers, the Chargers themselves. Small inconsequential things that slowly help Dorian to not feel like he’s completely alone. To feel like this is just some business trip that’s taken him out of Bull’s arms for a short while. That he’ll be on a plane morning come, ready to jump the man as soon as he’s back on the ground. 

If it weren’t for the glaring absence of “Kadan”, Dorian would already be surrounded in that feeling. 

But there is it. And there is Dorian’s reminder that this is as pretend as the whores he used to frequent when he was younger and stupider. Even if the voice at the other end of the line is the one he craves with every bit of his being, he can’t treat it as anything more than a particularly vivid dream. 

With all the wine he’s drunk, there’s only a 50% chance he’ll remember this regardless. 

He’s crying. Tears streaming down his face as his shoulders shake in silent sobs. The Bull’s baritone soothing old hurts and creating new, special ones all at the same time. It hurts. Dorian can’t get enough of it. 

Slowly, carefully, he lets himself sink into the space where nothing else matters but the Iron Bull, and weightless feeling in Dorian’s chest as he allows himself to believe that nothing in this scenario is wrong. Though even there the guilt is still a heavy stone in the middle of his chest. 

“I’m sorry,” he says into the phone. 

“Don’t have to apologise.” Bull makes a shushing sound.

“No, I should. You shouldn’t be doing this. I already make things harder for you don’t I?” 

“Hey. No one said that. I want to be doing this.” 

Dorian closes his eyes, turns until he’s face first into too soft pillows. “Why?” he pleads. 

“How about you tell me why you ran away first, and then I’ll tell you why I want you to be happy.” 

It’s a cheat. A horrible, awful cheat and Dorian should do something but honestly he doesn’t want to. There’s no way to really make this worse for himself. 

“I was poison,” He says, “And you didn’t deserve that.” 

There’s nothing from the other end of the phone. A stifling silence that feels like it’s reaching out tendrils of black nothingness until Dorian is drowning in it. 

“I miss you,” It draws out of his lungs, “I still love you and I miss you so much it hurts. I’m so so sorry,” 

“Kadan,” Bull says. 

“Katoh.” 

Dorian hangs up the phone. Throws it across the room and doesn’t pick it up when it starts ringing as soon as it hits the floor. He can’t. He can’t do this. It’s not right or fair. To anyone, especially not the Iron Bull. 

It turns out that he actually can make this worse. Of course. 

He goes back to plan A: get drunk enough to forget all about this. He’s still got half a fridge left of expensive wine to get through. Felix will be disappointed in him, but Dorian is sure he can get away with mitigating circumstances now. 

In his dreams he’s dancing. Held close to a grey chest, and he can’t seem to stop smiling. 


	8. Felix Wedding angst 2/2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s a moment where Dorian refers to himself as alcoholic and depressed. Though whether he is or not is open to interpretation.

For a moment all The Iron Bull can do is stare at his phone. It’s still ringing Dorian’s cell, the third time Bull has tried to get in contact since Dorian’s safeword. The fact that Dorian safe worded at all means that Bull should drop this, but he doesn’t want to. He can’t.

He’s not letting his kadan slip out of his life without a fight. Not again.

Bull sets the phone down next to him on the coffee table next to the couch. It’s not going to be any help if Dorian doesn’t pick up. He won’t, Bull knows the man well enough to realise when one mode of communication is a lost cause. So he’s got to find some other way of getting through. It’s not an option to just let this go, not when Dorian’s last few words are still ringing around Bull’s ears.

Poison. Dorian thinks he’s poison.

When Bull wraps his hand around his dragon tooth necklace he only gets a small amount of comfort from it. The smooth bone and metal chain digging into the palm of his hand. What did Bull do to make Dorian think that?

Nothing. He already knows the answer. Bull’s been trying to unfuck Dorian’s brain since practically the first moment he laid eyes on the ‘vint with cracks in his armour a mile wide. He’d thought he’d been doing an okay job at it too.

The day Dorian had left proved that wrong, but Bull had never realised how much of an extent Dorian had been hurting. He’d thought it had just been–well Bull doesn’t really know. Some part of Dorian’s head that had surfaced and told him that he wasn’t safe in Bull’s house. In Bull’s bed.

Hey, reasonable assumption considering all the shit that Dorian’s told Bull about his life in Tevinter. So Bull had waited for his kadan to get his head back together and come back home. It hadn’t happened, and about a week ago Bull had wondered if maybe he should call Dorian. Just to see what the man was doing. He hadn’t done it. Every time he had tried there had been the niggling thought that he was reading too much into everything.

Bull supposes he doesn’t need to find out what Dorian’s feeling now.

An important fact has made itself clear: Dorian isn’t coming home unless Bull asks him to. His kadan isn’t coming home unless Bull can convince him that his very existence isn’t hurting Bull. He stands up, picking up his phone again and shoving it into the pocket of his jeans. Okay then. Bull can do that.

And if he can’t he’s damn well going to try.

It’s late, almost 11 at night. Krem is at a friends house, thankfully so Bull doesn’t need to find someone to chaperone the kid. Not that he needs it anymore but Bull worries about leaving Krem on his own for long periods of time. He fires off a text, explaining the situation. In response he gets “GO GET IM TAMA” and immediately “Ask him how I’m meant to conjugate shit again?”

Bull can’t help but smile at that. Trust Krem to go from cheering to asking about the tevene homework he’s been struggling with since Dorian’s sudden departure from their lives. Then he’s bundling himself up and packing a light bag and hunting for his passport.

“Hey Josie,” he says into his phone a little bit later once he’s finally managed to find his good tie, “About that favour you owe me? I need to cash it in.”

* * *

It takes 8 hours to get from Skyhold to Tevinter by plane. Then another 1 to get to the hotel where Felix’s wedding is taking place. Bull knows the location because social media has always been his best friend discounting Krem and the dream team that is Josephine and Leliana on a mission.

On the way there Bull sleeps as much as he can, and plans when he can’t. Every so often he taps the pocket of his pants, as if checking to make sure the package inside is still secure. Somehow Josie’s managed to land him 1st class, so he has enough room for his horns. A rare luxury that Bull could definitely get used to.

The taxi he hails at the airport is significantly less lavish. But the driver chatters happily to Bull about his kids and ignores the speed limit with a reckless abandon that Bull can appreciate in a man. He tips big when he finally gets to the hotel, and the man offers him good luck on whatever super secret thing it is that sends a qunari into Tevinter.

Bull’s pretty sure the guy thinks he’s some sort of spy or something. Which wouldn’t have been so out there a few years back, but Bull’s been retired since Krem hit 15. Vint’s, never can trust them to tell when someone’s Vashoth or still working under the Qun.

The hotel is grand, lavish to excess. Bull stares at the heavy doors with their elegant gold handles, and narrows his one eye. His hand taps again at his pocket, and then he walks into the building.

It’s just gone 9:30. So the lobby’s only got a little traffic– the receptionist and a few early checking outs. None of them are Dorian. Bull fixes a winning smile onto his face, and waits to be addressed.

The receptionist is a middle aged human, Tevene by her colouring and the way she looks at Bull down her nose. Like he’s some sort of unfortunate bug that got on the end of her shoe.

“Can I help you?” She asks, clearly indicating that she would rather not help Bull at all.

Bull ignores the tone, going for cheerful and polite, “Yeah, you got a Dorian Pavus staying here by any chance?”

The woman purses her lips, “I’m not familiar with the name,” She lies, she looks at Bull expectantly, but when all he does is look back she huffs and continues, “But I’ll check the register for you.”

“That would be appreciated.”

There’s a moment where the woman tries to indicate that Bull should go loiter somewhere else, which Bull happily pretends not to notice. Instead he rests his arms on the counter and looks over her shoulder.

As such, he knows that as well as finding Dorian’s name, she also pages a one Aquinea Pavus to come down to the lobby immediately. Not that it will do much good, Bull suspects. He remembers Aquinea from Dorian’s stories, and there had never been any account where she hadn’t been drunk.

“He’s here, do you want me to call him down?”

“Nah, just tell me his room number.” Bull says. The woman darts a glare at him, which Bull ignores. Hey, it’s not his fault that she’s letting racism and bigotry affect her job. She gives him the room number. If she hadn’t Bull would have spun the computer screen around and taken it for himself. Hey, he’s not letting racism and bigotry affect his job either.

Dorian is on the third floor. Room 20. Bull does not run, but he walks as fast as he can, all the while with a hand over his right pocket. This has to work.

Bull’s mind settles into battle readiness, adrenaline heightening his senses and slowing the world down. An old habit, and maybe a bad one for the way it makes the journey up the stairs feel like an age, and the 30 seconds stood outside Dorian’s door between Bull knocking and it opening last long enough for Bull to rethink his entire speech twice over.

Maybe this isn’t a good idea.

It’s not often that Bull lets himself second guess his own actions. There’s too many stones thrown in the pond for him to really dwell on anything outside of the occasional nightmare. With Dorian, Bull has second guessed almost every action. Flirting, wondering if he was hitting the wrong buttons even as the ‘vint had flushed red under the warm tavern lights. Casual touches in the daylight as Dorian’s breath caught, and didn’t quite relax into them for a minute before going boneless. The box in his pocket, the knock on the hotel door. Katoh ringing in his ears.

The door opens.

Bull drinks in the sight of his Kadan.

Dorian’s eyes are red rimmed from crying, an old t-shirt hanging off his shoulders. His mustache is crooked, mouth open in shock.

“Hey,” Bull says. He has to resist the urge to pull the smaller man into his arms.

Dorian stares at him. Posture going quickly from loose limbed shock to tight indignation, “What in the Maker’s name are you doing here?”

“Taking you home,” Bull says.

“No.”

“Dorian.”

“No! Didn’t you hear me? Did you listen to a word I said last–Bull go away.”

But Dorian doesn’t close the door, and Bull doesn’t leave. He’s travelled too many miles for him to give up now when he can read the lines of tension running all the way down Dorian’s spine.

“Is that what you really want?” He asks instead.

“What?”

“For me to leave. Is that what you really want? Cause if it is I’ll go, I’ll go down those stairs and get on the first plane to Skyhold. I’ll tell Krem his tutor’s never coming back and you can waste away in the university library. I’ll never answer your calls again and I’ll make sure Varric doesn’t invite us out to drink on the same night.” Bull shrugs, “Or I can help you pack up your stuff, have loud sex on the bed, say hello to Felix and take you back to my apartment where we can introduce you to my cuffs and blindfolds again.”

“You can’t just say things like that.” Dorian says, an edge to his words that are probably tears. Proven when he ducks his head, and then freezes. “Why are you wearing that.”

“Wearing what? A shirt? Pants? Something that isn’t hideous?”

“Debateable,” Dorian raises his hand and rests his index finger on the silverite that encases Bull’s half of the dragon tooth, “why are you wearing that.”

He’s really pissed if he’s not going after the obvious bait of Bull’s fashion choices. But Bull has nowhere to go except forwards, so he raises a fist to curl the fingers over Dorian’s hand and the dragon tooth.

“You’re the one who gave it to me.”

“And I clearly remember indicating that you should throw it over a cliff,” Dorian hisses.

Right, Bull remembers this. Sober Dorian hiding his hangover and his feelings behind so many impenetrable masks. Well, meant to be impenetrable.

“Because you don’t love me anymore?”

Dorian flinches.

“Yeah,” Bull sighs, he lifts the hand holding Dorian’s and presses his lips to Dorian’s wrist. “You aren’t poison for loving me.”

There’s a sniff, and Dorian’s head drops his gaze to the floor. “I didn’t mean to tell you that.”

An old rule: Bull doesn’t bring up the shit Dorian says during subspace unprompted. Another rule: He doesn’t let the hurtful shit Dorian keeps hidden inside to fester into a mess. The second has always been more important than the first.

“But you still think it.”

How can I not?” Dorian scoffs, dragging his hand out of Bull’s grasp. “Have you looked at me? I’m a disgraced heir, a ‘vint not to mention an Altus who used to be slated for Magister until he ruined his prospects by–by deciding the people he bedded were more important than his future.” He draws away further, standing until he’s almost shielded by the door, “Bull look at me. I’m a wreck. I’m an alcoholic, depressed history professor working in the corner of the world so I don’t have to face my family and obligations. I’m clingy and selfish and egotistical. How can you think of me as anything more than a homewrecker?”

“You’re the kindest man I know.” Bull says.

Dorian’s hand stills on the handle of the door he had been about to close, “What.” He doesn’t look at Bull.

“You’re the kindest man I know,” Bull repeats. “You volunteer at a school which gives you shit for your upbringing. You teach Krem a language he should already know without judgement. You don’t look at me and think Savage.”

“Anymore.” Dorian interjects. “I don’t think of you as a savage anymore.”

“You never really did.”

Dorian scoffs, but doesn’t argue the point any further.

“Yeah, you’re a bit of a mess, but everyone is.” Bull shrugs, “Doesn’t change the fact that I want you in my life.”

“Why.” An aggrieved sigh.

“‘Cause I love you.”

Dorian’s eyes close in pain, “Bull. Please”

“Amatus,” Bull says in reply. Dorian keens, and he still doesn’t look at Bull. So Bull does the only thing he has left, the thing he was planning to do for a while, and never really got around to. The favour of Josie’s; tucked away in his pocket.

He takes the box in a palm that seems overly massive when compared to the dark blue velvet offering and lowers himself down on one knee.

“Kadan, I need you to open your eyes.” A soft request, a voice that had once been more suited for the bedroom after difficult scenes. Bull watches as Dorian’s eyes screw up tightly before, almost of their own volition they inch open.

And then widen into horrified awe.

“What are you doing?” Dorian breathes.

“Shoulda thought that would be obvious big guy, what with all the romcoms you’ve made me watch over the years.” His knee aches slightly, plush as the carpeting here is it’s never been happy meeting a floor. Dorian is staring at him, head shaking like he’s trying to clear fog out of it.  

“No. No. Really?”

Bull shrugs, “I don’t go on my knees for just anyone.”

There’s an aggrieved sound, “You said that the first time you sucked me off.”

“I meant it.”

“That is not the point!” Dorian’s hands land on his shoulders, digging in slightly, like the man’s checking Bull is really there. He’s trying to pull Bull up, but Bull resolutely stays on his knees and flips the velvet box open.

“You have to give me an answer before I get up.” Bull reminds.

There’s a loud silence. Dorian’s lip disappears behind his teeth. Bull doesn’t have to wonder what the man’s thinking about; it’s written on his face as clear as day. The suspicion that Bull doesn’t mean it, the swift rebuttal that of course Bull means it. The uncertain query of Why me joined by all the things that Dorian thinks about himself that aren’t true. A searching look as Dorian tries to read Bull’s motives off his face. The realisation that Bull is looking at him with the type of look that wouldn’t look out of place in aforementioned romcoms.

Dorian’s always been good at reading Bull’s expressions when he tries. Bull makes it easy for him.

Because I love you. Because you think a lot of shit that doesn’t mean anything. Because even when it does mean things I don’t care. Because I wear the dragon tooth and I’ve got it’s made in my back pocket. Because I found perfect rings about a month before you disappeared and had been trying to subtly work out your ring size and what you felt about silver over gold without you putting everything together. Because you’re my heart. My love. I want you in my life for as long as we both live and I’m willing to let your friends host the biggest, fanciest wedding this side of Fereldan to prove it if you’ll let me.

Dorian starts crying. The tears dripping out of his eyes to fall down his cheeks. He doesn’t reach up to stop them, like he hasn’t noticed the start.

“Yes. Yes alright, please get off the floor, that can’t be good for your knees.” He attempts to pull up again and this time Bull lets him. His knee only complains a little. Dorian reaches up further, going onto his tiptoes to capture Bull’s lips in a kiss.

It feels like coming home.

“You are terrible.” Dorian says. “Utterly horendous.”

“You’re stuck with me now.” Bull slides the ring onto Dorian’s finger. There’s a small, happy little sigh and Dorian leans his entire weight against Bull’s chest.

“Yes. Yes I suppose I am.”

Later they scandalise the rest of Dorian’s family and possibly half of Tevinter by kissing in the lobby. Felix cries, Mae smiles enigmatically and baby cousins ask Bull if they can ride on his horns.

Krem sends two texts. The first is a bunch of happy emoticons and a “FUCK YES” The next is: “But srsly ask him how I conjugate plllllzzzzzzz”

Dorian laughs, steals the phone, and snuggles into Bull’s side. His fingers a blur as he resumes his full time job as Krem’s Tevene tutor. His dragon tooth is back around his neck, and Bull doesn’t think it’s ever going to taken off again.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian/Bull “Somewhere deep inside me, I still have hope that you’ll fall in love. How pathetic.”

Qunari have no concept of love. The Iron Bull isn’t what Dorian needs. 

And they wonder why Varric keeps pitching romance novels about them. 

Qunari do not fall in love.

Fact.

The Imperium uses it as the greatest measure of impersonhood of the invading oxmen.  Thanks to their backwards religion or simply a quirk of biology it is impossible for a Qunari to fall in love . The senate uses biology. The well loved paperbacks hidden carefully under Dorian’s bed prefer to use the religion.

Dorian has no idea which is correct. He doesn’t think much of it for the most part. Stuck as he is in Tevinter, the inner workings on the Qunari are not much of anything more than an idle curiosity.

It’s a little different once he gets to Skyhold.

When he meets the Bull. When he–oh who is he trying to trick–falls in love. The Iron Bull is very much Qunari. From the Vitaar across his shoulders to his grey skin to his horns. To his little notebook of reports to the homeland to the way he views sex. It’s little more than a transaction. A way to pass the time.

Dorian never asks. Afraid of the answer he supposes, not a new feeling at all. He never did manage to ask his mother if she was complicit in his almost murder.

Qunari do not fall in love.

Fact.

* * *

Kadan. It slips off his lips one day. Between the friendly jibing and complaining and teasing that always happens whenever he and Dorian are in the same space together.

“I’ll have you know I was voted the most eligible bachelor of the Minrathous circle.”

“Whatever you say Kadan.”

Bull freezes, for the half second it takes for him to realise he’s said it, and that yeah. He means it.

Dorian doesn’t notice. Neither does the rest of the bar. Probably a good thing, now isn’t the time for heavy emotions like love getting in the way of the thing he has here. With his spitfire of a mage that wanders into his room at night and always leaves in the morning.

Bull doesn’t know how to tell him to stop that. Doesn’t know why he wants to. But his bed feels empty now when Dorian isn’t there in it. He hasn’t taken anyone else to bed in months. No one else has noticed this fact and Bull wants to keep it that way because as soon as they notice they’ll start asking why and Bull won’t have an answer because–because.

Because as soon as the question is asked (What are we?) Bull has to name this thing. And as soon as he names it it’ll be gone.

Koslun’s balls, Dorian isn’t going to want to stick around for something more. Not with Bull. Not for a Qunari who’s good in bed but missing an eye and not suited for all the messy shit that happens in the something more.

He isn’t what Dorian needs.

And yet–

Kadan

* * *

(To think they wonder about the reason Varric keeps writing novels about them)

**Author's Note:**

> [Prompt me things!](http://bandit-writes.tumblr.com/)


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